108 THE CULTURE OF THE GEAPE. 



liquid manure water from the drainings of a dunghill, 

 and we never had a shrivelled grape dui-ing the three 

 years I was there ; and these grapes have never failed 

 taking the first prize for the best flavored bunch at the 

 Jedburgh Horticultural Society, for many years past ; 

 and there are vineries in this neighborhood that have 

 borders not above three feet deep, upon a gravelly bot- 

 tom, which have not been renewed this fifty years, that 

 hiive had abundance of shrivelled grapes in them every 

 year lately. I think the foregoing remarks prove that it 

 is neither the coldness nor the richness of the border that 

 is the occasion of the shrivelling. 'Now, in my opinion, 

 damp, stagnant air is very much if not altogether, the 

 cause of the shrivelling of grapes after they commence 

 their second swelling. If there should not be a free cir- 

 culation of air in the house, they will shrivel, and, if the 

 weather be wet or cloudy, they will not do with high 

 forcing. I am certain, from experience, that W. H. is 

 perfectly correct as to- the air, and keeping a dry atmo- 

 sphere." 



Vol. 17, page 47. Another writer says, " Never thin 

 out the berries until the seed is formed, and let the berries 

 touch and press each other close when ripe ;" this, he 

 says, will prevent all shanking. 



Vol. 17, pages 47 and 48, J. W. B. says, want of food 

 is the sole cause, and " this deficiency of nutriment 

 might arise from various causes, but, undoubtedly, the 

 principal one is a bad border ; under which head, I in- 

 clude not only poor hungry soils, that are incapable of 

 supporting a plant in vigor, but those deep and narrow 

 pits of rich earth in which vines are generally planted. 



